New card - Abbey Zero

HamiltonL

exel1966 wrote: »

I have vast experience and numerous compensation (goodwill payments) in dealing with Abbey complaints and can assure you that it is not easy as they do NOT follow set procedures, perhaps from being overworked !

I just wish Santander would wake up and realise the turmoil they cause and spend more time and money on training staff to a satisfactory standard rather than have a substantially large complaints dept. being overworked through self manufactured errors. Rant Over !!

I appreciate what you say. I mean I can honestly say the vast majority of people I know in the office (albeit admittedly a small part of the card service CSA's) are extremely good at their job and do the best they can. If you receive poor information though as you have experienced, there is no excuse for that. I think one of the problems with Complaints is they get given cases 'too early'. By that I mean if there is a problem, it usually goes to us on the floor to sort out with the line managers. If this doesn't get resolved this way, then it goes to Complaints (and if need be, further). I guess a few CSA's pass it on to Complaints immediately if, say, they don't have the stomach to try and sort it. That's unprofessional.

HamiltonL

not_loaded wrote: »

Thanks for the input HamiltonL. Yup, I wrote to the Customer Relations Unit at Grafton Gate over a week ago. Again, the letter shows my email, my phone number and of course my address. Guess what? No response.

I similarly wrote to the head of card operations (by name) at Bradford. No response.

Again, all I can offer is my apologies. That is deeply unacceptable.

I feel the front-line staff are doing what they can, but the information systems they have are abysmal, and in addition the staff are clearly not empowered to actually solve customer problems.

What I would say is that there have been some recent improvements to the application tracking system, with more improvements on the way I understand.

Almost every call has ended in ‘sorry I don’t know.’ I’ve had three occasions where I’ve been told I will be rung back, then nothing;

I think I mentioned earlier on this thread that you can't always be guaranteed an automatic phone back and cited the (perhaps controversial) reasoning. If you did get assurances though that is disappointing.

and one occasion where I was told the paperwork was ‘going straight in the post’ that day. Again, nothing.

What a bizarre thing for a CSA to say. The details would have to be sent to Bradford via the back office. He/she seems to be implying that they have the paperwork on their desks! I just hope it was somebody on their first day as I've never come across anything like that.

There’s obviously no competent management chain at Bradford. Customer Relations at Grafton Gate should have burnt somebody’s ear with an immediate phone call on seeing all the detail in my complaint letter.

Hopefully they are in the process of sorting out your complaint. Hopefully....

Somebody somewhere ought to realise that it’s a complete waste of Santander’s resources to do a mailshot to ‘valued’ customers and then proceed to hack them off with atrocious service.

Well it's certainly the first I've heard of this problem I must admit.

As I said a few pages back HamiltonL, I appreciate what you’re doing here, helping with some background knowledge. I’m afraid there’s no way I could work for a company with those standards.

We don't usually have any problems. The system (on Microsoft XP, we don't need Alan Sugar's cast-offs!) is usually reliable and answerable to any problems or enquiries. It does disappoint everybody in the office though when we get the rare calls about problems for various things, ongoing or new. We want them cleaned up so we can concentrate on other things. In all honesty things have settled down a lot since the turn of the year with the new technology and its well documented problems. I hope the recent 'turmoils' expressed on here get sorted soon.

Incidentally, any news from the other posters on here who applied for a Zero who posted about a fortnight ago? I'd like to hear your feedback too.

Cloudane

HamiltonL wrote: »

Hope you enjoyed the Beethoven serenade!

It's better than HSBC's repetitive clip!

Internet details arrived yesterday, so I'm all set now. Just need to inform them of the holiday date and it's all sorted

Here's an interesting question (I'll probably ask them anyway), I'll likely have internet access there. If I withdraw cash, I know that it carries interest even if it's paid off in full at the end of the month. But if I make one-off payments on the same day will this mean only one day's interest or possibly none? Better still, would it be possible to overpay/pre-load the card and not have any interest or fees whatsoever?

Cloudane

To answer my own question...

Yes you can pre-pay the card, just use your internet banking to make a payment to their sort code / account number (guess I'd better not post them; but you can get them if you phone up) and your card number as the reference number. Or visit an Abbey branch. If your card has a positive balance, you don't pay any interest, even on cash withdrawals. Tthe very helpful customer services lady double-checked this.

With a bit of pre-planning therefore it can be just as good a card as Nationwide for overseas

NickX

Cloudane wrote: »

If your card has a positive balance, you don't pay any interest, even on cash withdrawals.

This is true of all Credit Cards. They cannot charge you interest if there is no debt.

harz99

New application took about 4 weeks from start to finish. Applied online and stated wished to balance transfer from Tesco. This was done about 3 days before I actually received my paperwork via GPO. So far no probs not of my own making.

Just have to remember to change DD to pay of in full before interest kicks in.

ldn-100

Cloudane wrote: »

To answer my own question...

Yes you can pre-pay the card,

Is it definitely ok to deliberately put money into the Abbey Zero card, bringing it into credit? Most credit card companies do not like a significant positive balance. I seem to remember Morgan Stanley terms & c., for example, threatening to return any payment that brought the account into credit. If it is definitely ok, this is great for foreign purchases and cash withdrawals.

Cloudane

Well, I asked specifically if it was ok and the person I spoke to said yes it's fine to overpay and have the card in credit. I guess to be 101% certain I could've asked for it in writing, but she seemed pretty sure.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has asked and had the same response or a different one.

not_loaded

Heck, just be grateful for any sort of response. I’m up to eight letters now, including:

Card operations at Bradford – FIVE
Head of card operations (by name) at Bradford – ONE
Customer Relations Unit at Grafton Gate - TWO

All of the recipients have my email, my phone number and of course my address.

All still amazingly with no response whatsoever. My phone calls to Bradford number about a dozen now. I’ve stopped writing down the details of those as it’s so depressing, and it’s obviously a complete waste of my time.

I’ll wait for Monday’s post and then I’m moving on to Nathan Bostock, Chief Financial Officer & Executive Director, at Milton Keynes, who, according to the Abbey website is responsible for HR, Products & Marketing, and Cards.

If no response from him, the last port of call will be Santander Central Hispano, Sede Operativa, Plaza de Canalejas 1, 28014 Madrid.

I will of course post back here if I EVER get a reply from these charming people…

exel1966

My last complaint to Abbey banking (not c/cards) took 11 weeks to even acknowledge and that was by telephone call !!! It should take 5 working days to acknowledge and normally four weeks to deal with and a max of 8 weeks to resolve.

By that time I had sent a second letter after 6 weeks advising them that a letter to the FOS was pending if no action within the two weeks. That letter was acknowledged after the 14th week, 6 weeks after the FOS had become involved !!

It ultimately cost Abbet a LOT more than it would/should have done.

Therefore do not be surprised if you don't hear anything for a while longer yet.